Political Correctness around the world and its stifling of liberty and sense. Chronicling a slowly developing dictatorship Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.)

Monday, October 14, 2013

British authorities nearly banned new £5 note with Churchill on it in case it upset the Germans...and officials worried about Jane Austen 'private life'

Bank of England bosses thought twice about putting Sir Winston Churchill on the new £5 note – because they didn’t want to upset the Germans.

Officials warned Sir Mervyn King, then Governor of the Bank of England, that Churchill’s wartime record might make him highly controversial, documents obtained by The Mail on Sunday show.

The same officials also insisted on carrying out a background check on Jane Austen, the prim spinster author of Pride And Prejudice who will appear on the £10 note from 2017, to reassure themselves there were ‘no issues in her private life’.

Previously classified documents, obtained under freedom of information laws, shed light on the hitherto secret process of how the Bank of England decides which historic figures are honoured.

In a memo dated April 11, 2012, Sir Mervyn was advised Churchill will be a popular choice because of his ‘broad name recognition’ and the public’s ‘very affectionate view’ of him as a wartime leader. But officials also warned him that ‘the recentness of World War II is a living memory for many here and on the Continent’.

The rest of the comments, which relate to Britain’s relationship with its former wartime enemies, have been redacted from the files. A source at the Bank last night said: ‘Public bodies are obliged to redact any material which might impact on Britain’s international relations with another country, and this is what has happened here.’

Andrew Roberts, Churchill’s biographer, said: ‘The comments redacted would have been about irritating the Germans. I don’t think a German or Japanese tourist would be in the slightest bit put off by the fact there is Churchill on a £5 note and he is the man who flattened Dresden and Hiroshima.

‘They appreciate he’s the greatest Englishman who ever lived so you put him on the currency. It’s surprising this hasn’t happened earlier.’

Officials also warned Sir Mervyn of Churchill’s ‘disastrous’ decision to return Britain to the gold standard in the 1920s. Churchill’s critics at the time claimed the move, with the backing of the Bank of England, produced the mass unemployment, deflation and industrial strife of the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Bank staff who conducted ‘considerable research’ into Churchill’s role in the debacle noted: ‘If academics do pick up on the move to the gold standard it is likely they will refer to the role of the Bank and Churchill’s own criticism of the Bank.’

Austen was considered in 1984 but ruled out because there was ‘a lack of suitable art work’. The fact no new art work has come to light since will lead to concerns she was ruled out because she was a woman. Officials also said ‘name recognition’ for the novelist – whose works are often GCSE set texts – had increased significantly thanks to film and television adaptations.

The papers note the writer’s ‘high-brow, middle-brow and mass appeal’; and confirm ‘they have found no issues in her private life’.

The interest in Austen’s private life may strike some as odd given fellow writer Charles Dickens, who appeared on the £10 note from 1992 to 2003, had at least one mistress.

Maureen Stiller, of the Jane Austen Society, said: ‘I love the fact they went to the trouble of checking her private life. But there is absolutely no controversy there.’

Churchill will appear on the £5 note from 2016. A Bank spokesman said: ‘We have taken great care to ensure men and women chosen are admired by the British public.’

The fear of being labelled "politically incorrect" keeps Sweden's main political parties from engaging in an honest debate about integration, and plays into the hands of the far-right (anti-immigration "Sweden Democrats"), argues contributor Ruben Brunsveld.

On August 19th, local politician and human rights activist Robert Hannah came out of the closet in dramatic fashion by publishing an article in the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper with the headline "From now on I will be myself".

The article made waves as it was not only a personal story about his decision to come out as a homosexual, but also a public denouncement of the honour culture still prevalent in some parts of the Assyrian immigrant culture in which he was raised.

Since then, the waves have become stronger as both support for and the attacks on Hannah have grown in intensity. His article exposed Sweden's sensitive nerve of political correctness for what it really is: a self-imposed strait jacket.

Since he went public and shared his experiences as a gay man living under the moral oppression of the Assyrian honour culture, it seems the strongest criticism he has faced has come from within the ranks of Sweden's left-wing progressives. He has been accused of feeding xenophobia, abusing rhetorical techniques to "win a debate" and of using his own personal experiences as scientifically unsound evidence for making generic statements about immigrants. In short he has been accused of playing straight into the hands of the extreme right.

Ironically enough, this almost Pavlovian reaction by the politically correct establishment is reminiscent of a mantra employed by former US President George W. Bush which later became known as the Bush Doctrine: you're either with us or against us.

It denies the reality that the world of immigration and integration is not black and white but one with at least 50 shades of grey. Worse than that, it prevents an open and honest debate about the challenges of integration. These challenges are not only about honour violence, women's rights, and individual freedoms. They also include language training, housing, and social integration, just to name a few. And the solution cannot be one; they must be many, taking into account the vast array of talents, skills, and backgrounds of immigrants of all different kinds.

Sweden is rightfully proud to see itself as a role model in the EU when it comes to immigration and asylum policies, as proven by its recent decision to grant permanent residency to all Syrian asylum seekers. But if Sweden wants to avoid falling into the Dutch-Danish trap of a political backlash by the extreme right, the country's pundits, papers, and politicians must shed their blanket of political correctness and acknowledge that a high number of non-western immigrants also brings with it the increased potential for cultural clashes.

It is not Hannah who plays into the hands of the far-right, it is the fear among the main political parties of being labelled "politically incorrect".

Integration and immigration will be one of the main political issues in the coming decades. Yet in Social Democrat leader Stefan Löfven's "vision article" published recently in DN, it was painfully absent.

Meanwhile, the government of Prime Minister Reinfeldt seems more focused on the macro-economy, giving the impression that the leadership of the Moderate Party considers "growth" a goal in itself instead of an instrument to achieve well-being.

By consciously avoiding the topic of "immigration and integration", the main political parties are directly guilty of contributing to feelings of socio-economic insecurity amongst a part of the electorate. If they want to know why the far-right and anti-immigration Sweden Democrats reached an all-time high of 12 percent in a recent opinion poll, they don't need to hire a consultant, they need to look in the mirror.

The main political parties' failure to come up with a comprehensive integration agenda that addresses not only the need for immigration but also the challenges that come with it gives those who are unhappy in the current socio-economic climate only one alternative.

Hannah's courageous article has opened the door for an honest debate on integration. Let's hope that in this upcoming year of elections (European Parliament in May, Sweden's Riksdag in September) Sweden's political leaders have the courage to follow him through it.

More than 600,000 unemployed European Union migrants are living in Britain at a cost of £1.5 billion to the NHS alone, according to an EU report.

The authoritative study, obtained by The Sunday Telegraph, shows the number of jobless European migrants coming to Britain has risen dramatically in the past five years, intensifying demands for the Government to renegotiate EU membership.

Opponents of the EU seized on the figures to suggest Britain could not afford to allow European migrants to come here at will while continuing to provide a universal benefits system.

The 291-page report, to be published this week by the European commissioner in charge of employment and welfare, discloses:

* The number of “non-active” EU migrants in Britain has risen by 42 per cent between 2006 and 2012;

* 611,779 “non-active” EU migrants were living in Britain last year, up from 431,687 just six years ago. The total is equivalent to the population of Glasgow;

* The number of EU migrants coming to Britain without a job increased by 73 per cent in the three years to 2011;

* The current annual cost to the NHS of “non-active” EU migrants is estimated at £1.5 billion (€1.8 billion);

* In contrast, the estimated cost to France’s health system of “non-active” EU migrants is a fraction of that to the NHS, at just £3.4 million.

The report was written for Brussels and ordered by Laszlo Andor, the socialist commissioner in charge of employment and social inclusion.

The Sunday Telegraph can disclose that he is to bring a court case to make it easier for European migrants to claim benefits in Britain.

He will challenge a scheme that makes certain benefits available only to migrants from the EU who are “economically active” and is intended to make Britain less attractive to so-called benefit tourists.

But the EU-sponsored legal case would overturn this scheme, a move the Department for Work and Pensions said would make Britain more attractive to people wanting to live off the state.

Meanwhile, a court case last week detailed how a gang of Czech benefit fraudsters stood to make £1 million in bogus claims for child tax credits and child benefit, emphasising that benefit tourism can also include fraud on a vast scale.

Eurosceptic MPs said last night that the study and court case showed that Britain had to tighten up its borders and introduce stronger controls on welfare handouts.

The Government currently has no idea how much of Britain’s welfare budget, including unemployment benefits, is given to EU citizens because a claimant’s nationality is not recorded in the system.

Douglas Carswell, the Conservative backbench Euro-sceptic MP, said yesterday: “It is extraordinary how the European project has debased and debauched the original, noble idea of the welfare state. “These figures show that the wave of benefit migrants has become a tsunami of economic refugees fleeing the eurozone crisis to try to find jobs here. “We cannot both continue the free-at-the-point-of-use welfare state and benefits system and allow Europeans to flee the eurozone and come here. “It is decision time. I would rather we quit Europe and had our own system of social protection.”

The details of the report are the first concrete assessment of the impact of mass migration on Britain and other countries from predominantly eastern European countries including Poland, Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The report studied the numbers of unemployed EU citizens coming to Britain looking for work, showing that the number coming without jobs has risen by 73 per cent in three years.

The report suggests that: “Between 2006 and 2012 there has been a steady increase of 42 per cent in the number of non-active EU migrants in the UK. While between 2005 and 2006 the growth of non-active EU migrants in the UK stagnated, since 2006 it has been steadily rising.

“A particularly high increase can be noticed between 2009 and 2011. The number of job-seeking EU migrants increased by 73 per cent between 2008 and 2011, while the total EU migrant population (active and non-active) increased by only 28 per cent.”

The report also shows the extraordinary burden on the NHS, concluding it is equivalent to more than one per cent of the total NHS budget of £1.5 billion. The NHS is under financial pressure because although it is excluded from government austerity measures, demands on it are outstripping the growth in its budget.

Only Italy, of the major countries, came close to such a burden on its health care system, with a bill of £620 million, the report finds.

Open Europe, the think tank, said evidence from the study — described as a fact-finding analysis — suggested Britain was counting the cost of an EU migrant boom. The rise suggests that many EU citizens have been coming to Britain as a result of economic difficulties, especially in eastern Europe and Mediterranean countries such as Greece and Portugal.

Although the report details the cost to the Government in stark terms, it comes with a conclusion that there is “little evidence” that EU citizens came to Britain to collect state benefits – and the practice known as “benefit tourism” was largely a myth.

The study states “the vast majority of migrants move to find (or take up) employment”. The report concludes that “the budgetary impact” of claims by “non-active” EU migrants “on national welfare budgets is very low” and adds: “The same is true for costs associated with the take-up of health care by this group.”

Open Europe said the report was misleading — “possibly wilfully” — in its conclusions and in apparently ignoring the evidence its authors had gathered.

Mr Andor, who commissioned the report, is to use the conclusions that migration is mostly for work as part of a landmark European Court case he is bringing against the Government. Mr Andor has accused Britain of discriminating against EU citizens by restricting their ability to claim state benefits through a “right to reside” test introduced in 2004 to stem the flow of claimants from the new Eastern European member states. The test does not apply to UK citizens.

Mr Andor plans to lodge a legal action with the European Court of Justice. If successful, it would outlaw the “right to reside” test. This would open Britain’s benefits system to tens of thousands of extra EU citizens at an estimated cost of £150 million — although the figure could be far higher. Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has suggested the figure might be as high as £2 billion.

Experts point out that while most EU migrants may move between countries to look for jobs the British system makes it easier than most other countries’ to claim benefits. This is because British benefits are based on means-testing rather than on the recipient having made previous national insurance contributions.

European law says all EU citizens in a member country must have the same rights, so it is illegal to stop migrants from the rest of the EU claiming the same as British citizens. Similarly, NHS facilities are not dependent on paying any form of health insurance, as they are free at the point of access.

Conversely, the law means British people who move to countries such as France which only pay benefits to people who have contributed in the past cannot receive benefits and are likely to face severe restrictions on health care.

Stephen Booth, research director at Open Europe, said: “The European Commission is, wilfully or otherwise, presenting this whole issue misleadingly. It is the European Commission that is attempting to move the goalposts by taking the UK to court over the existing safeguards that ensure the UK’s welfare system is not abused. “If the commission gets its way, the UK’s rules for gaining access to benefits will be relaxed substantially.”

The Department for Work and Pensions said last night it would resist attempts by the EU to weaken its “right to reside” tests. A spokesman said a new, streamlined universal benefits system would make it more difficult to abuse.

The spokesman said: “We have strict rules in place to protect the integrity of the British benefits system and make sure it is not abused. “We are also going further by strengthening the habitual residence test and time-limiting how long some migrants can claim benefits.”

The commission has accused the Government of failing to provide proof of the extent — or even existence — of “benefits tourism”.A submission to the report’s authors by the Government said it did not keep statistics on the nationalities of benefits claimants.

It is outrageous enough that the IRS and The White House were working in tandem so that the IRS shared confidential taxpayer information with the president and/or his aides. What makes the law-breaking doubly contemptible is that the information was shared in the context of a lawsuit against the despicable, unconstitutional ObamaCare abortifacient/contraceptive mandate:

[Top ObamaCare official Sarah Hall] Ingram attempted to counsel the White House on a lawsuit from religious organizations opposing Obamacare’s contraception mandate. Email exchanges involving Ingram and White House officials — including White House health policy advisor Ellen Montz and deputy assistant to the president for health policy Jeanne Lambrew — contained confidential taxpayer information, according to Oversight.

This news is significant, as more incontrovertible evidence that there was collusion between the IRS and The White House -- in this context, designed to help President Obama and his administration combat the furor elicited by the mandate.

What's more, note that the confidential taxpayer information came in the context of the lawsuit from religious organizations. It seems the administration was trying to get the upper hand in the litigation involving them. And that the confidential information was, presumably, that of such (a) group(s) just highlights the Obama administration's adversarial stance toward religion, especially Catholicism. Look at the other evidence of administration indifference (or worse) to faith:

Preventing a priest from conducting Mass voluntarily;

Analogizing religious education to segregation;

Allowing Plan B to be offered over-the-counter to girls of all ages;

The President's offensive behavior at Georgetown;

The President's penchant for leaving the "Creator" out of the Declaration of Independence;

The administration's threat to court-martial Christians in the military who discuss their faith.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

Background

The most beautiful woman in the world? I think she was. Yes: It's Agnetha Fältskog

A beautiful baby is king -- with blue eyes, blond hair and white skin. How incorrect can you get?

Kristina Pimenova, said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair

Enough said

There really is an actress named Donna Air. She seems a pleasant enough woman, though

What feminism has wrought:

There's actually some wisdom there. The dreamy lady says she is holding out for someone who meets her standards. The other lady reasonably replies "There's nobody there". Standards can be unrealistically high and feminists have laboured mightily to make them so

Some bright spark occasionally decides that Leftism is feminine and conservatism is masculine. That totally misses the point. If true, how come the vote in American presidential elections usually shows something close to a 50/50 split between men and women? And in the 2016 Presidential election, Trump won 53 percent of white women, despite allegations focused on his past treatment of some women.

Political correctness is Fascism pretending to be manners

Political Correctness is as big a threat to free speech as Communism and Fascism. All 3 were/are socialist.

The problem with minorities is not race but culture. For instance, many American black males fit in well with the majority culture. They go to college, work legally for their living, marry and support the mother of their children, go to church, abstain from crime and are considerate towards others. Who could reasonably object to such people? It is people who subscribe to minority cultures -- black, Latino or Muslim -- who can give rise to concern. If antisocial attitudes and/or behaviour become pervasive among a group, however, policies may reasonably devised to deal with that group as a whole

Black lives DON'T matter -- to other blacks. The leading cause of death among young black males is attack by other young black males

Psychological defence mechanisms such as projection play a large part in Leftist thinking and discourse. So their frantic search for evil in the words and deeds of others is easily understandable. The evil is in themselves. Leftist motivations are fundamentally Fascist. They want to "fundamentally transform" the lives of their fellow citizens, which is as authoritarian as you can get. We saw where it led in Russia and China. The "compassion" that Leftists parade is just a cloak for their ghastly real motivations

Occasionally I put up on this blog complaints about the privileged position of homosexuals in today's world. I look forward to the day when the pendulum swings back and homosexuals are treated as equals before the law. To a simple Leftist mind, that makes me "homophobic", even though I have no fear of any kind of homosexuals.

But I thought it might be useful for me to point out a few things. For a start, I am not unwise enough to say that some of my best friends are homosexual. None are, in fact. Though there are two homosexuals in my normal social circle whom I get on well with and whom I think well of.

Of possible relevance: My late sister was a homosexual; I loved Liberace's sense of humour and I thought that Robert Helpmann was marvellous as Don Quixote in the Nureyev ballet of that name.

I record on this blog many examples of negligent, inefficient and reprehensible behaviour on the part of British police. After 13 years of Labour party rule they have become highly politicized, with values that reflect the demands made on them by the political Left rather than than what the community expects of them. They have become lazy and cowardly and avoid dealing with real crime wherever possible -- preferring instead to harass normal decent people for minor infractions -- particularly offences against political correctness. They are an excellent example of the destruction that can be brought about by Leftist meddling.

I also record on this blog much social worker evil -- particularly British social worker evil. The evil is neither negligent nor random. It follows exactly the pattern you would expect from the Marxist-oriented indoctrination they get in social work school -- where the middle class is seen as the enemy and the underclass is seen as virtuous. So social workers are lightning fast to take children away from normal decent parents on the basis of of minor or imaginary infractions while turning a blind eye to gross child abuse by the underclass

The genetics of crime: I have been pointing out for some time the evidence that there is a substantial genetic element in criminality. Some people are born bad. See here, here, here, here (DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.12581) and here, for instance"

Gender is a property of words, not of people. Using it otherwise is just another politically correct distortion -- though not as pernicious as calling racial discrimination "Affirmative action"

Postmodernism is fundamentally frivolous. Postmodernists routinely condemn racism and intolerance as wrong but then say that there is no such thing as right and wrong. They are clearly not being serious. Either they do not really believe in moral nihilism or they believe that racism cannot be condemned!

Postmodernism is in fact just a tantrum. Post-Soviet reality in particular suits Leftists so badly that their response is to deny that reality exists. That they can be so dishonest, however, simply shows how psychopathic they are.

So why do Leftists say "There is no such thing as right and wrong" when backed into a rhetorical corner? They say it because that is the predominant conclusion of analytic philosophers. And, as Keynes said: "Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back”

Juergen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."

Consider two "jokes" below:

Q. "Why are Leftists always standing up for blacks and homosexuals?

A. Because for all three groups their only God is their penis"

Pretty offensive, right? So consider this one:

Q. "Why are evangelical Christians like the Taliban?

A. They are both religious fundamentalists"

The latter "joke" is not a joke at all, of course. It is a comparison routinely touted by Leftists. Both "jokes" are greatly offensive and unfair to the parties targeted but one gets a pass without question while the other would bring great wrath on the head of anyone uttering it. Why? Because political correctness is in fact just Leftist bigotry. Bigotry is unfairly favouring one or more groups of people over others -- usually justified as "truth".

One of my more amusing memories is from the time when the Soviet Union still existed and I was teaching sociology in a major Australian university. On one memorable occasion, we had a representative of the Soviet Womens' organization visit us -- a stout and heavily made-up lady of mature years. When she was ushered into our conference room, she was greeted with something like adulation by the local Marxists. In question time after her talk, however, someone asked her how homosexuals were treated in the USSR. She replied: "We don't have any. That was before the revolution". The consternation and confusion that produced among my Leftist colleagues was hilarious to behold and still lives vividly in my memory. The more things change, the more they remain the same, however. In Sept. 2007 President Ahmadinejad told Columbia university that there are no homosexuals in Iran.

It is widely agreed (with mainly Lesbians dissenting) that boys need their fathers. What needs much wider recognition is that girls need their fathers too. The relationship between a "Daddy's girl" and her father is perhaps the most beautiful human relationship there is. It can help give the girl concerned inner strength for the rest of her life.

A modern feminist complains: "We are so far from “having it all” that “we barely even have a slice of the pie, which we probably baked ourselves while sobbing into the pastry at 4am”."

Patriotism does NOT in general go with hostilty towards others. See e.g. here and here and even here ("Ethnocentrism and Xenophobia: A Cross-Cultural Study" by anthropologist Elizabeth Cashdan. In Current Anthropology Vol. 42, No. 5, December 2001).

The love of bureaucracy is very Leftist and hence "correct". Who said this? "Account must be taken of every single article, every pound of grain, because what socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything". It was V.I. Lenin

"An objection I hear frequently is: ‘Why should we tolerate intolerance?’ The assumption is that tolerating views that you don’t agree with is like a gift, an act of kindness. It suggests we’re doing people a favour by tolerating their view. My argument is that tolerance is vital to us, to you and I, because it’s actually the presupposition of all our freedoms. You cannot be free in any meaningful sense unless there is a recognition that we are free to act on our beliefs, we’re free to think what we want and express ourselves freely. Unless we have that freedom, all those other freedoms that we have on paper mean nothing" -- SOURCE

RELIGION:

Although it is a popular traditional chant, the "Kol Nidre" should be abandoned by modern Jewish congregations. It was totally understandable where it originated in the Middle Ages but is morally obnoxious in the modern world and vivid "proof" of all sorts of antisemitic stereotypes

What the Bible says about homosexuality:

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; It is abomination" -- Lev. 18:22

In his great diatribe against the pagan Romans, the apostle Paul included homosexuality among their sins:

"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.... Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them" -- Romans 1:26,27,32.

So churches that condone homosexuality are clearly post-Christian

Although I am an atheist, I have great respect for the wisdom of ancient times as collected in the Bible. And its condemnation of homosexuality makes considerable sense to me. In an era when family values are under constant assault, such a return to the basics could be helpful. Nonetheless, I approve of St. Paul's advice in the second chapter of his epistle to the Romans that it is for God to punish them, not us. In secular terms, homosexuality between consenting adults in private should not be penalized but nor should it be promoted or praised. In Christian terms, "Gay pride" is of the Devil

The homosexuals of Gibeah (Judges 19 & 20) set in train a series of events which brought down great wrath and destruction on their tribe. The tribe of Benjamin was almost wiped out when it would not disown its homosexuals. Are we seeing a related process in the woes presently being experienced by the amoral Western world? Note that there was one Western country that was not affected by the global financial crisis and subsequently had no debt problems: Australia. In September 2012 the Australian federal parliament considered a bill to implement homosexual marriage. It was rejected by a large majority -- including members from both major political parties

Religion is deeply human. The recent discoveries at Gobekli Tepe suggest that it was religion not farming that gave birth to civilization. Early civilizations were at any rate all very religious. Atheism is mainly a very modern development and is even now very much a minority opinion

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" - Isaiah 5:20 (KJV)

I think it's not unreasonable to see Islam as the religion of the Devil. Any religion that loves death or leads to parents rejoicing when their children blow themselves up is surely of the Devil -- however you conceive of the Devil. Whether he is a man in a red suit with horns and a tail, a fallen spirit being, or simply the evil side of human nature hardly matters. In all cases Islam is clearly anti-life and only the Devil or his disciples could rejoice in that.

And there surely could be few lower forms of human behaviour than to give abuse and harm in return for help. The compassionate practices of countries with Christian traditions have led many such countries to give a new home to Muslim refugees and seekers after a better life. It's basic humanity that such kindness should attract gratitude and appreciation. But do Muslims appreciate it? They most commonly show contempt for the countries and societies concerned. That's another sign of Satanic influence.

And how's this for demonic thinking?: "Asian father whose daughter drowned in Dubai sea 'stopped lifeguards from saving her because he didn't want her touched and dishonoured by strange men'

And where Muslims tell us that they love death, the great Christian celebration is of the birth of a baby -- the monogenes theos (only begotten god) as John 1:18 describes it in the original Greek -- Christmas!

No wonder so many Muslims are hostile and angry. They have little companionship from women and not even any companionship from dogs -- which are emotionally important in most other cultures. Dogs are "unclean"

On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!

Germaine Greer is a stupid old Harpy who is notable only for the depth and extent of her hatreds

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

Note: If the link to one of my articles is not working, the article concerned can generally be viewed by prefixing to the filename the following: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/42197/20121106-1520/jonjayray.comuv.com/

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here